Sorry SD, you may be finest but not smartest

San Diego can only dream that it's the smartest as well as the finest city in America.

Fast Company
magazine lists the Top 10 "smartest" cities in North America and San Diego isn't one of them.

The list is loaded with Canadians, perhaps, because its compiler
Boyd Cohen
, an urban and climate strategist who founded Smart Cities Hub, has a company based in Vancouver. But he also is director of the entrepreneurship center at the
University of San Andreas
, Udesa, in Argentina.

Cohen used six factors to come up with his list -- "smart" economy, environment, governance, living, mobility and people.

The top cities:

San Diego did not rate, Cohen said, because it ranks only 99th on the Innovation Cities index, generated by
2thinkknow
, a company in Melbourne, Australia. He only looked at the top 50 to generate his own list.

It's a good guess that our area's high housing prices and relatively low wages doom it as having a smart economy, its complex local government doesn't make for great governance and dependence on cars doesn't equal good mobility.

But Los Angeles could be dinged for the same things.

Here's what Cohen says about our great rival to the north:

"This entry may come as somewhat of a surprise. Los Angeles is famous for its sprawl and traffic jams, which are reflected in a low rate of transit use (11.6 percent), the lowest by far of any of the cities in this ranking. However, L.A. is starting to break out of the box with increased density, growing its network of pedestrian and cycling paths and increased use of renewable energy. L.A. also is starting to create a thriving technology entrepreneurial ecosystem and is rated fourth globally in the inventive cities ranking."